Curling your mitts around that first cup of coffee in the morning is just hands-down the best feeling in the world. You love the warmth, the aroma, and the feeling of the nutty brew waking up your taste buds. Beyond coffee’s aesthetic pleasures, a slew of studies suggest a java habit has health benefits, too, from protecting against type 2 diabetes and reducing cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s risk to containing cell-protecting antioxidants.

A warning out of California, however, might be cause for concern for coffee lovers. Coffee shops in the state may soon be required to alert customers if their beverages contain acrylamide, a chemical linked to cancer in some studies.

A lawsuit filed in 2010 by the Council for Education and Research on Toxics says that some companies that peddle coffee there — including Starbucks — are in violation of the state’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, known as Proposition 65. The non-profit group wants a warning label on coffee products that harbor any chemicals on California’s list of substances linked to cancer. Acrylamide was added to that list in 1990.

Almost two-thirds of us drink at least one cup a day, according to a Gallup poll. So the big question for java junkies is, just how much acrylamide is in our daily Starbucks order, and will it raise our cancer risk? For that matter, how exactly does it make its way into our coffee in the first place?

According to the American Cancer Society, acrylamide can form in foods — mainly plant-based ones — from sugars and an amino acid (asparagine) during high-temperature frying, roasting, and baking. With coffee, it’s created “naturally” during the roasting phase, not “put in” coffee by manufacturers, the National Coffee Association says on its website.

Potato chips and French fries have also gotten a bad rap for containing acrylamide, and the FDA encourages consumers to avoid them. “High levels of acrylamide have been found to cause cancer in animals, and on that basis scientists believe it is likely to cause cancer in humans as well,” the FDA website says.

Further, acrylamide amounts may differ from place to place, so you can’t know in advance what you’re getting. “Acrylamide levels in foods can vary widely depending on the manufacturer, the cooking time, and the method and temperature of the cooking process,” says the FDA.

That said, the amount of acrylamide in coffee specifically is not as high as it is in some other acrylamide-containing foods, such as fries, potato chips, and cereals, says Motoko Mukai, PhD, Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology and Assistant Professor in the Department of Food Science at Cornell University. The National Coffee Association also points out on its site that the World Health Organization (WHO) removed coffee from a list of potential carcinogens in 2016.

When it comes to decaf versus caffeinated coffee, Mukai says there’s not enough evidence on whether or not acrylamide levels vary between the two. “I suspect there shouldn't be any difference, as I do not expect levels of amino acid and reducing sugars will change with the decaffeination process,” she says. Brewing a cup at home versus grabbing a mug at your local shop probably won’t make a difference, either.

If you want to cut back on acrylamide in other foods, boiling or eating uncooked meals is one way to go, research suggests. Protein-rich foods also have less of the chemical.

The cancer group says more studies on acrylamide in coffee and other foods are needed to determine if it raises cancer risk in people. In the meantime, the food industry should continue to find ways to reduce acrylamide levels in foods, including coffee, as much as possible, says Mukai.

But for the time being, Mukai still says it's OK to keep sipping your morning cup of joe. “Although acrylamide is considered a probable carcinogen, we also need to take the health benefits of drinking coffee into consideration. To date, there is no evidence that drinking coffee leads to increased risk of cancer, so at this point, coffee drinkers don't need to worry too much about the presence of acrylamide in coffee,” she says.

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